Quote:
Originally Posted by kmacdonald
Monos are for sailors and cats are for the sedentary dockers locking for a condo with view.
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It's good to know we have a REAL SAILOR amongst us to show us the way to glory. I think you will however find that there are hundreds of real sailors among the voyaging community sailing cats. You will find them crossing oceans.....sailing to
remote ports and islands. I assume you also have sailed the seven seas and visited the many
remote places. I'm eager to hear how sailing a
monohull across an ocean will make me a better sailor, or why I should live in a hole while anchored in a beautiful exotic place.
This thread was not started as forum for debating the virtues of cats versus monos. You can do that in the yacht club bar with a belly full of whiskey. It was intended to share my own decision, and how and why I arrived at it. I suspect that monos spend just as much time in
marinas and at
anchor as cats and trimarans.
The issue here is not which
boat is better for whatever you do, it is which boat is best suited to what I want to do, and I outlined the reasons for the choice fairly clearly. I want a boat I can live comfortably in..... If that is un-seaman-like So be it. I have nothing to prove to anybody.... one of my glaring personality flaws ;-) I don't want to have to sleep with a lee cloth, or cook with a butt strap or sea swing, or worry about that pot of stew being spread all over the
cabin; if I don't have to. I'm not interested in spending weeks at a time rolling from rail to rail sailing downwind, or in walking on walls, and living on my ear if I don't have to. I want to be able to do things under way or at
anchor... fixing things, building things etc. You don't have to tie up to a dock to keep those carburetor
parts on the table... etc. Your mileage obviously varies.
I'm reminded of a trip I took in my little Subaru Legacy wagon far back on the remote rim of Hell's Canyon. I intended to camp right out on a point, and the road was brutal, with huge mud holes (I could mostly avoid) and steep grades with rocks that I couldn't always get around. I even got out and pried a few out and got them out of the way so I could get by.... it was snowing, and a stiff icy
wind was blowing. At the summit of the road were 5 jacked up 4x4 pickups with huge monster mudder tires parked, and a roaring fire, and a group of young
men drinking
beer and telling stories. Each pickup had a pair of balls hanging from the hitch. I was going about 5 miles further... the road turning into not much more than a goat trail, but I couldn't resist stopping to visit. They of course offered me a
beer.... and tried not to look crestfallen....real
men drive jacked up 4x4's ;-) I was old enough to be a father to any of them, and have been driving the back country all my life....... They couldn't really say anything. I got some pleasure out of bursting their bubble, and then continuing on to camp the night far out on the rim.
They had the wisdom and tact that comes with maturity.... Something utterly lacking in your comment. Grow up!